Mobile terminals, or mobile (cellular) telephones, for mobile telecommunications systems like GSM, UMTS, D-AMPS and CDMA2000 have been used for many years now. In the older days, mobile terminals were used almost only for voice communication with other mobile terminals or stationary telephones. More recently, the use of modern terminals has been broadened to include not just voice communication, but also various other services and applications such as video telephony, electronic messaging (e.g. SMS, MMS, email, instant messaging), digital image or video recording, FM radio, music playback, electronic games, calendar/organizer/time planner, word processing, WWW/WAP browser, etc.
Two mobile terminals 200a, 200b of the prior art with both voice and video telephony capability are shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B.
The mobile terminals 200a, 200b each have a user interface which typically includes a display 203 and a keypad 204, the latter including a set of alpha-numeric (ITU-T type) keys 204a. The user interface also comprises acoustic components for sound input and output. These components typically include a microphone 205 and a speaker 202, and additionally often audio I/O ports in an accessories interface. The speaker 202 normally serves to provide acoustic output in the form of human speech, ring signals, music, etc.
As more functionality has been added to mobile terminals, additional input means have been provided for additional efficiency and functionality. For instance, modern mobile terminals are often provided, in addition to an ITU-T type keypad, with function keys/soft keys 204b, 204c (i.e. keys that have different functions in different contexts), a joystick 211 and a camera 212.
With the introduction of third generation mobile communication systems (3G), video telephony has been provided to mobile terminal users. Video telephony may in rare cases only convey visual information, but most commonly video telephony includes both video and voice communication.
A first alternative to allow a user to initiate a video call is shown in FIG. 2A. The user may for example first dial a phone number 209 to an intended receiver of the video call, and then the user may press a dedicated video call key 210. Using the dedicated (separate) video call key 210 to initiate a video call has a disadvantage in that it adds on to the total number of keys in the user interface. Not only will such a separate video call key require some additional space and therefore have negative implications for a mobile terminal designer that seeks to meet market demands for miniaturized terminals, but it will also add on to the total component cost for the user interface. Furthermore, a separate video call key represents yet an additional key that the mobile terminal user must know the meaning and location of.
A second alternative to allow a user to initiate a video call is shown in FIG. 2B. Here, upon having entered an intended receiver's phone number, the user presses a soft key 204c to display a menu 208. From the menu 208 the user selects to initiate a video call. While this alternative allows a user to initiate a video call without requiring a dedicated video call key, the procedure requires several key presses and time to initiate a video call.